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 Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:54 pm
It was definitely something to get used to, having food served to you for every meal. Brian was used to getting up, having something quick for breakfast, and grabbing a coffee on morning shifts. On night shifts, dinner was usually a sandwich at a gas station, and that was if the evening was quiet enough to stop at all. Having someone else cook a whole meal and serve it to you, that was new.
He wasn't complaining, of course. Boy oh boy was he not complaining. He'd never been much of a chef himself and mostly survived on mediocre pre-packaged or frozen everything. He looked forward to eating now, when he got to take meals at the Prytaneum.
That was where he was now, eating dinner with the rest of the Chosen crew after an early shift and a long shower. It seemed like everyone had made friends in the time they'd been here, but he was hesitant to step into conversations. Why was it so hard to deal with people off of the clock?!
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:36 pm
Beth had not quite perked up to her usual self over the next day or so after their return to the Prytaneum. Several of them had left the grounds to return, at least temporarily, to their presumably less crazy and metal bird-less outside lives. It was a good strategy, but Beth still didn't know how to phrase answers to questions she assumed would be posed to her. Getting through a Skype call with her mother had been hard enough. She had spent a lot of her life keeping one thing or another quiet from her parents. The thought of hiding secrets from her friends made her stomach turn. Not enough that she didn't enjoy the meals they served at the Prytaneum. Though it meant socializing and thereby being "on," she still made herself presentable and ate in the Cafeteria every chance she got. It was harder finding people to sit with. She could feel herself retreating, isolating despite her yearning to be with others. If Misha, Briiva, or Cat weren't there, she ate alone. But this evening was different. This evening, she saw another familiar face. "Brian!" She squealed, coming up behind him where he was seated, and throwing her arms around his shoulders. "You know, I almost forgot you were here. You've been making yourself scarce! Where have you been?"She clung to him a bit too tightly, sighing heavily as she hugged him. He felt stable, real, and safe. All things that she needed right then, bereft as she was of her other Chosen and mundane friends. WC: 259, Total: 259
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:49 pm
Brian had only barely heard Beth before she threw her arms around him. He had turned to see where the familiar sound was coming from, but that was all before he found himself being hugged. He startled slightly and tensed at the gesture. Happily, he had already swallowed the water that was in his mouth.
The man awkwardly patted Beth's arm in what he hoped was a friendly way, and an honest smile trailed across his lips. He was half-expecting her to be in the infirmary for a few more days, but he had seen other people who had been fairly wounded walking around. The protection spells they had were definitely an amazing feat of magic. Or maybe not. To be honest, he didn't really understand magic yet.
"Work, mostly," he answered finally. He had been on the ilk that returning to work would be better than going awol and potentially losing his job. Finally he allowed himself to wrap one arm around her in some semblance of a real hug and gestured for her to sit beside him (if she wanted to, of course). "How are you feeling?" he asked, although he was pretty sure he knew. Everyone was mostly physically okay, but not so much mentally. He was a person maybe more used to trauma than most others, but he still had had nightmares about the birds.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:28 pm
When Beth felt him tense, she almost pulled away. 'Did I offend him?' She wondered, tensing herself. She then remembered that they had voted for opposite side in the Alps. 'Does he remember?' Her heart shuddered. 'Does he hate me?!' He had seemed friendly enough after the big battle with the...big bird. Had she read that wrong? She felt his awkward pat and wrinkled her nose. 'Oh, now he's just being nice. God. I probably look like an idiot.'His response and the one-armed hug he returned, however, made her shoulders relax. She quickly took the seat next to the one he had offered her, leaving a person-sized space between them. "Work?" She repeated, making a bleh face. "That doesn't seem like fun at all."At his question, she paled just a hint, though it was hard to see through her already pale complexion. Instinctively, she her right thumb brushed the edge of her long sleeved shirt, layered under an almost strangely fancy brocaded dress. They did not look like pieces that were meant to be mixed. She forced a cheery smile, however, as easy as breathing, and chirped, "Oh, you know, not...dead." She set her mouth, the yikes expression already forming as she swiveled to pay more attention to her food than her companion. As she piled up her plate, she said more casually than she felt, "How about you? You were out in the thick of it more than I was." She cast him a look of genuine concern. "You know you can take a break, right? The crises will come whenever they feel like it."WC: 268, Total: 527
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:41 pm
Had Brian felt Beth tense, he may have gone quiet and awkward and made this whole conversation even more of an ordeal. Instead he had hugged her, and all was well.
He smiled and chuckled when Beth spoke. He figured that the space between them must be her own personal comfort zone, as they'd just hugged and he had seen her half-skewered on bird feathers and covered in poop.
"I like my job," he said, "It's been pretty uneventful so far, which is good. Besides, it's a decent distraction." he took another draught from his glass and smiled again. It was a boyish sort of expression one didn't often see written on the young man's face.
"Not dead is good," Brain replied then with a nod. His smile went concerned for a moment, but quickly flickered back. A lot of them had only nearly been not-dead. There were people up on that mountain who were dead too, and it was all their fault. The Chosen would never know if there had been any chance to save them in the first place, but that was apparently how their lives were going to go from now on.He liked to think that at least a couple might have been saved by the emergency team.
He shook his head then in response to her question about him. He hadn't gotten so bad as to really get stuck. He was beginning to regret bringing it up at all, but what was he supposed to do?
"I'm fine," he said, "I live in the thick of it." War, crime... it was a different "thick of it" but similar all the same. he changed the subject abruptly then. "The food is pretty impressive in this place, no? I mean, I know we saw Hestia around here, but I didn't have my hopes up."
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 8:35 pm
Beth had to giggle a bit at Brian's pronouncement of 'living in the thick of it.' Then she blinked. "I just realized that I don't know exactly what it is you do for work. Are you in the military?" While she knew there was a lot to the job--and anything, really--than on the surface and glamorized on movie screens, she always liked the idea of a man in uniform. "I guess next to that, birds don't seem like that much of a threat." 'No, he said that work was uneventful, so the birds were much worse than what he has to deal with on a daily basis.'She started eating the food this time. Her table manners were exquisite, despite the communal surroundings. Though she was concerned about him, and wanted to know more about his life outside of the Prytaneum, she let him steer the conversation more or less away from the shared trauma of the Alps. It disappointed her a little that he thought they had nothing in common to discuss besides the food. It was like commenting on the weather. Still, she responded, "I've eaten at three star restaurants before, and yet none of them achieved the kind of welcoming ambience here. The food helps. A lot of...comfort foods. Honestly, I don't think it's worth spending a lot of money on something if it's not absolutely magnificent. And there's something magnificent about food just like mother used to make."Beth could barely remember a time when her mother lifted a hand to cook. Those nostalgic recollections of warm cookies and tender hugs in a kitchen that smelled of cherry pie were just that--wishful distortions of a time only vaguely understood. When she thought of home, she thought of the cold. Black walls and marble statues. Lots of frosted glass. Her eyes a bit unfocused, she blinked and shot a glance at Brian, hoping she hadn't retreated into her head for long enough to be noticed. Her thumb worried the edge of her shirt again, as she maneuvered a fork into place and speared a piece of meat. WC: 353, Total: 880
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 9:23 pm
"I was," Brian said with a little nod. It seemed like forever ago now, except on the nights when it could have been yesterday. "I did my five and came back to join the police force." He found that people didn't tend to be all too interested beyond that, and he certainly didn't hold it against him. If people got too curious, things got weird. He had a bad habit of telling the truth when he shouldn't.
As Beth went on about her three-star restaurants and "magnificent" food, Brian tried and modestly failed at hiding an amused smile. He worked with all types, but generally not those who had the occasion to talk about ambience. He should have recognized it in her. He had, after all, watched her painstakingly take shower curtains down from their rings in a hotel that had been beset by s**t-spewing metal birds. It was likely that Beth was a person of some privilege, and for some reason he found it funny. Hopefully she wouldn't take it too to-heart.
"I can make toast, and my hometown has a pretty decent Olive Garden." He watched her as he leaned in to take a bite of food, and came up smiling. Not to be impolite, he chewed and swallowed before speaking again.
"I mean, my mother could cook, can cook, but it wasn't something she passed on to me," he admitted. His head tilted slightly to the side. "I'm realizing that I know nothing about you. What do you do? Or what did you do, before all this?" He gestured generally into the room with his fork.
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 7:25 pm
Beth waited for extrapolation that didn't come. The revelation that he was a cop, however, made a flash of understanding light her eyes. "A cop and ex-military? Well, no wonder you were a scourge on the birds." If he had done his time and then left it all behind, it would have been one thing. But to then turn around and swear to protect and serve meant that here was a man who felt duty bound to guard others, who fought to save what was behind him, not to kill what was in front of him. Or he just really liked knocking heads together. Such a temperament seemed more at home in Ares than Zeus. But who was she to judge? There was a reticence in his voice as he nonchalantly skated by details on his past. 'Did something happen that he's ashamed of?' She was intrigued, but knew that their association had only just blossomed. She didn't want to push too hard lest she burst the bubble. She did not probe, but filed the thought away for later. At Brian's profession of his experience with cooking, Beth laughed a bit. "Oh, I am just hopeless in the kitchen. I tried to cook once, when I first got here. Apparently, Hera likes that or something. It's practically a requirement to be Hers. I didn't get the memo. It was...not a good time." She giggled. "I am, however, pretty good at packing the food away, though!" She punctuated the observation by continuing to clear her plate. Her lips twitched as he mentioned Olive Garden, as if that were the pinnacle of his epicurean experience. She couldn't wait to show him real gourmet food. But that would come with time. Beth's eyebrows raised in worry at his verb tense slip regarding his mother, but when he corrected himself, she looked relieved. The subject inevitably came back around to her. It was as if the conversation were an exchange of information or something. Beth took a deep breath, considering. It was always strange, to think of ways to package and present herself so many times to different people. Sometimes she felt like she was a movie or book and she was pitching herself to producers in an elevator. "Not much of anything, I suppose, if you asked my mother. I was at school for Museum management. I like showing things off, I guess." She had never been solid on her choice of majors, but it was something she'd spent enough time on that she figured it merited a mention, if not something she should build her identity on here. She frowned a little, thinking about it. Did she really want to be the person she had left behind? Sometimes it seemed simpler and she missed it. But she wasn't exactly sure she could walk away from all this Chosen business without looking back. She tried to recenter and come back to the original point. She took a small breath and said, "Certainly nothing exciting enough to get your heart pumping, I'm sure." She grinned at him, both so he would know it was a friendly jab but also to gauge his reaction. grasshopperpie I'M SORRY I'M CHATTY gonk
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 2:01 pm
Brian noted Beth's facial response to his mention of the Olive Garden and he couldn't help but chuckle. he had been joking around, of course. To a point, anyway. Where he came from, the Olive Garden was a nice night out, or a Texas Roadhouse if his dad was in charge of choosing. He'd never been to a gourmet anything, and certainly never anything he'd tag as "magnificent." It had simply been offered as a silly counter-point to her lavish past.
It didn't matter either way whether Beth could cook or not, but he smiled with her. She was honest. He liked it. Most women wouldn't brag about how much they ate, but then most women weren't Chosen. He laughed lightly and nodded.
"Oh? College, or some sort of other program?" Brian was honestly curious. He believed that you could learn a lot from a person's past, if your sense of separation was good enough. He wasn't sure what he had expected from Beth, but this wasn't it. Besides, he had never heard of someone majoring in "Museum Management," but it could totally be a thing. It wasn't like he had gone to college himself. That had been the idea, at first, of going into the Army, but when he'd gotten out it was the last thing on his mind. He'd learned enough, and his skills could be put to better use in action. "Oh, please. Don't depreciate yourself. Museum management or not, I've seen you do a lot of things that get the heart pumping." He had seen her blocking the way into the hotel, had heard her yelling, had seen her stand against the giant buzzard and come out wounded. "Besides, that's not the only thing life's worth."
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 6:52 pm
Beth nodded. "Yup, University of Washington. Go dawgs!" She giggled and noticed the confused-but-curious look on his face. "It was a certificate program, a weird mix of anthropology, history, curation. Mostly, though, I was interested in collecting lovely things that I thought others should see. You know, fashion is a really interesting paradigm to follow through history. It tracks the mores and the ideas of status--" She could feel herself slipping into the academic again. She cut herself off with an effort. "I only finished half of the program. I was a bit lost as to what I wanted to make my thesis. One good thing that came of being Chosen, I won't have to do that...yet."The blush that spread from her neck to her hairline at his praise was almost immediate. She let out a soft eep into her cup, from which she had been drinking as he spoke. 'I've done things to get him excited?' She had no idea how to take the comment, much less respond to it. It was flattering to think that her efforts had not gone unnoticed. She knew he was only repeating her comment to further reinforce his compliment, but it was a detail she couldn't help but get stuck on. It was boggling to comprehend, especially from someone she respected as much as she did Brian. It was a liminal moment and she felt something change. But she could not think of that now, not when politeness required her response. Despite his assertion not to depreciate herself, she answered, "What curator has ever saved a life? I mean, you did so much more than me. I saw you on the battlefield. You didn't get pin cushioned by a giant bird. You wanted to go out and help save people! That's what you do!" She suddenly realized how loudly she was talking and how public their conversation could be. In a hushed tone, she continued, "You've been perfectly trained to handle the situations the gods seem to be asking us to take care of. Next to that, what...what could I possibly offer?" It was not a conversation she wanted to have, but the thoughts had been circling around her head, nonetheless. She took a deep breath, ran a hand through her hair, and said, "Sorry, I don't want to be heavy or a downer I just....It's been a trying time."WC: 399, Total: 1808
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 8:32 pm
All he did was smile as Beth talked. He enjoyed hearing people speak to things of which they were passionate. It didn't matter if he shared their passion; it was interesting all the same. He'd never been much of a collector himself, but he could see the draw. He also wasn't particularly fashion-savvy, but hey, everyone had their own thing. Beth, he thought, was rather fashionable. At least he was pretty sure.
He noticed her catch herself and he just chuckled. He shook his head slightly as if to say no, it's okay, you can keep going, but she stopped anyway. He was sure she had better people to talk about regarding fashion anyway. She and Misha had been buddies during the bird attacks.
"So your studies were more fashion-based?" he asked, if not only to show that he had been listening. A fashion-museum would be pretty interesting, he'd bet. He was also sure one (or many) existed somewhere. He had just never been to one, not even with his sisters.
Beth continued then, and he felt that she was suffering some sort of effect of the bird attack or else had come into this all with a lowered self-worth. What had her childhood been like? What about high school? He knew the old cliche was that rich folks who called food "magnificent" didn't pay all that much attention to their children sometimes.
"I also got to attack it from a good twenty feet away," Brian pointed out. He was most comfortable at a range. He'd taken perps down to the ground before, sure, but he was far more at-ease at a distance. That was why he had taken up the bow in the first place. "I didn't get 'pin-cushioned' because I was out of range. Besides, we don't really know what the Gods are asking of us. I highly doubt Aphrodite expects her Chosen to come in primed for battle, let alone Hera. Either way, though, if we are meant to battle monsters, they chose you for a reason. They chose all of us for a reason. Somehow a few dozen of us were better choices than the rest of the population, and there's a lot more of us than there are of them." Maybe it was habit, to try and comfort people. You did it at crime scenes all of the time. You did it with panicked folks looking for a way out. You did it with suicide risks. He meant what he said, though. Nobody here was useless. "Besides, without curators there would be any museums and then were would we be?" He took a swig of water and nodded.
"I know. It's been rough. We'll get through it, though." He smiled a bit more broadly and nudged Beth with his elbow.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:53 am
Beth sighed, curling a stray strand of hair around her finger. He probably thought her a real mess now, if he hadn't come out of the Alps with that suspicion. Yet, she couldn't help but be honest around him, even if that sent his estimation of her plummeting. She gave him a look somewhere between grateful relief and sad skepticism. “I just wish I knew why Hera Chose me. What She expects me to do.” She gave a soft, dry laugh. “I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with flagging faith when I chose to be agnostic. It’s just ironic that I have literally spoken to my goddess but I'm still asking the same questions as your everyday Christian.” She cast her eyes upward. “‘Why are we here?’ ‘What are we meant to do?’ ‘Hera, are you there? It’s Beth.’” She made a face, directing her gaze to her plate, and poked at her potatoes idly with a fork. After a moment she looked at Brian with thoughtful consideration. “I’m sure you know why Zeus Chose you,” she assumed morosely. There was a plea in her tone, a silent entreaty that he reassure her again, either by asserting that she would go purposeless no longer or that she was not alone in her questioning. grasshopper pie Ah, Beth, gj talking to the cop about spiritual matters.
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:53 pm
Brian shrugged again. None of them knew, did they? They could guess. There were definite "types" between the Chosen of a particular God or Goddess. Beth had said herself that she didn't seem to be the pristine object of a perfect soldier of Hera, but she had been chosen. Obviously it wasn't just hobbies and jobs that picked out a particular human for... service, or whatever it was.
He half-smiled and chuckled lightly when Beth misquoted a popular teen book title. He knew that one. He'd never read it, but he knew that it existed.
"Well, I know he likes cops, lawyers... law enforcement in general," Brian admitted. "There are millions of us out there, though. So why me specifically? Especially considering I was never particularly spiritual. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but that's crap. Besides, this isn't exactly a sphere of Gods most people believe in... or any people any more. I don't think any of us know. We only get to talk to our god once, right? How could we know?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:18 am
Though Beth didn't envy his position, as it sounded like he had his own questions, the mere fact that someone else--who seemed so calm and stable--was unsure comforted her. Some of the tension leaked out of her as he mused on the preferences of his god. She shrugged. “Some people certainly seem more...ready than others. I mean, there are Hephaestus Chosen and Athena Chosen and Ares Chosen who don't seem to have a problem figuring out what they're meant to do. It's just...disheartening, I guess, when there's no ‘aha!’ moment.” She considered her words for a moment, reflecting on their experiences as Chosen. “If this mission taught us anything, it's that our works will be interrupted by bouts of combat against strange, impossible monsters. And if I thought I was hopeless when it came to figuring out my ‘Independent Study,’” she shook her head to emphasize the enormity of her statement, “fighting things is going to kill me.” She sat her chin on a curled fist, looking off into the distance as she thought of just how close she had come in the last battle.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:01 am
"Well, I guess some of us are more combat-ready, but I'm not sure combat is all we're supposed to be worrying about," Brian admitted, "I just did a little bit of everything."
He listened to Beth's concerns and nodded softly. This sort of life change couldn't be easy for her. I wasn't easy for him and it was generally his job to protect people from horrible things. Going from average human to protected Chosen was a bit of a leap no matter who you were.
"Well, I certainly hope not." Nobody could be sure if any one of them was going to go down in battle. "I know I'm going to do everything I can to keep that from happening." He watched Beth drift off and touched her shoulder. He wasn't sure what else to say. She didn't seem to need reassurance any more and she'd abandoned her self-loathing for the moment. Sometimes people just needed to know that someone cared.
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